John O'Brien (poet)

Monsignor Patrick Joseph Hartigan (13 October 1878 – 27 December 1952) was an Australian Roman Catholic priest, educator, author and poet, writing under the name John O'Brien.

[1] [2] His poetry was very popular in Australia and was well received in Ireland and the United States.

His verse celebrated the lives and mores of the outback pastoral folk he ministered to as a peripatetic curate in the southern New South Wales and Riverina towns of Thurgoona, Berrigan and Narrandera, in the first two decades of the 20th century.

[3][4] The refrain We'll all be rooned from his poem Said Hanrahan has entered colloquial Australian English as a jocular response to any prediction of dire consequences arising, particularly, from events outside the interlocutor's control.

[7] The John O'Brien Heritage Museum is located in Audley Street.